CONFIDENT, BUT ...
But Southgate’s heard that eerie song before, as Swede’s could yet send them home alone
MOSCOW — The resident DJ at Nizhny Novgorod’s cavernous new stadium got his records mixed up.
For each competing nation at this World Cup, there is a hype song that is played about a halfhour before kickoff, as teams are finishing their warm-up routines. Some are national classics, most are more associated with the sport and the given national team than any great achievements in the field of music. Few, if any, have played on the mind of a Grammys judge.
England’s ditty is inevitably the iconic “Football’s Coming Home,” a melodic offering that became an instant anthem when the country hosted the European Championship in 1996. Football, in fact, didn’t come home then as Germany brought the trophy back to its homeland instead.
But that didn’t stop the song’s writers, comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner and indie act The Lightning Seeds, from giving it a fresh shake for the World Cup in France two summers later.
The intro to the ’98 version crackles to a packed Wembley Stadium belting out the chorus in 1996 and then overlays the commentary from England’s moment of agony as they exited their own tournament.
“Gareth Southgate, the whole of England is with you,” it says before a delay leads to the echoing outcome. “Oh it’s saved … aaved … aaaved.”
As Southgate’s English side finished its tune-ups for the second match of its 2018 World Cup in Nizhny Novgorod almost two weeks ago, that 1998 version, rather than the classic of ’96, echoed around the bowl. The now national team manager can’t have failed to have heard his darkest moment — he missed the decisive penalty against the Germans in the semifinal — replayed at deafening octaves.
On Tuesday night here in Moscow, as Southgate’s new, young England exorcised the demons of 1996 — and decades’ worth of penalty pain — by eliminating Colombia in an utterly enthralling battle, the chorus again pierced the sky above the Spartak Stadium. Only one problem. England is now beginning to really believe what it sings. The song is more popular than ever, swamping social media in various meme formats.
Football admittedly has its best chance of coming home for perhaps the past 52 years since the country won the tournament for its first and only time. But the hype that’s threatening to whip into full-blown hysteria ahead of Saturday afternoon’s quarterfinal with Sweden in Samara, ignores their opponent.
As England turns toward Samara’s stricken spaceship of a stadium on Saturday, it will find the most intriguing team left at the tournament. At almost every step on the road to Samara, Sweden has accounted for bona fide World Cup royalty. Sweden upset the odds to split France and the Netherlands in qualifying, eliminating the Dutch (who had finished third at Brazil 2014 and runners-up in South Africa four years earlier) before the World Cup even got its shoes on. Next up, the Swedes eliminated Italy in a playoff, ensuring a global gathering would not feature the Azzurri for the first time in 60 years.
In Group F it began with a gritty victory over South Korea and ended with a trouncing of Mexico, either side of a sickening defeat to Germany. No matter, Sweden’s six points were enough to help send the defending champion home in the group stage’s biggest sensation. For good measure, the Swedes eliminated a Switzerland side that sits seven places above England in the FIFA rankings last time out.
And still Janne Andersson’s side is overlooked — not so much on the back pages of England’s tabloids, but on the front where it has apparently been taken as given that Southgate’s Lions are bound for the final at the very least. Southgate strives to sound out such talk.
“We have underestimated them for years. Sweden is another team we have a poor record against,” he said Thursday. “They have created their own story and made history. I don’t want to go home yet.”